Monday, March 27, 2017

Mosul Campaign Day 161, March 26, 2017

It’s gotten to the point that the Iraqi forces (ISF) are
actively spreading disinformation about the Jadida air strike incident in west
Mosul. The Joint Operations Command issued a statement saying on March 17 a
unit from the Golden Division called in a Coalition air strike to take care of
an Islamic State car bomb. After clearing the area they found that the Islamic
State had herded civilians inside a booby-trapped house packed with explosives
and detonated it. There were no signs of damage coming from the air in the
building. A large car bomb also detonated next to the house. In total 61 bodies
were taken out of the rubble. The problem with this story is that this took
place in Resala, not Jadida. Since news of this incident came out the ISF has
been denying that it happened. This is part of the government’s propaganda
campaign where no casualties are reported. When deadly events like this do
happen the authorities seek to discredit it, but it just shows that Baghdad is
not a reliable source in these matters.

In Jadida itself more information is coming out about the
tragedy that happened there. Basma
Baseem the head of Mosul’s local council aired a video of the damage done.
The security forces then banned her from entering west Mosul. The civil defense
chief general Mohammed Mahmoud confirmed that it was an air strike that caused
the destruction. Some residents and have said that they saw what they thought
was a car or a truck bomb next to the houses. The Iraqi forces have also mentioned
that a vehicle bomb caused most of the casualties not aircraft. There is no
crater in the road that such a device would leave behind however. People on the
ground in the area have mentioned that before. Iraqi officers continued
to say that talk of heavy casualties in the incident were an exaggeration.
Again it was the ISF that was obfuscating the situation, as a provincial health
official told Reuters
that 160 people who had been dug out of the debris were officially buried so
far. Yesterday local authorities said a total of 240 people had died in the
buildings. Finally, the Iraqi forces have continued to try to keep journalists out
of the area to report on what happened. Despite these restrictions and ISF
denials the international press at least is providing plenty of details. That’s
not so apparent inside Iraq where most of the press reporting is dominated by
government releases.

Al
Jazeera and the Guardian
tried to provide some added background to the bombings going on in west Mosul.
Both talked with families who had survived air strikes. They talked about how
the blasts destroyed their homes and cost the lives of their family members.
This is an almost everyday experience, but is only now getting a lot of press
because of what happened in Jadida. Local authorities told
the United Nations that aircraft killed around 500 civilians during the fourth
week of March.

March 25 the ISF announced the halt of their operations in
west Mosul because of Jadida, but that too was not true. They made advance that
day, and on March
26 as well. The Federal Police and Rapid Reaction Division were still
making slow progress trying to take the Nuri
Grand Mosque near the Tigris River, and attacked the Baran area. According to
the Iraqi Observatory for Human Rights the Islamic State seized 197 children
and took them to the mosque to be used as human shields. The Wadi Ain and Rajim
al-Hadid neighborhoods were officially
declared freed by the Golden Division. That unit claimed
they took both on March 22. Overall, the ISF have only made minimal progress in
the Old City since it assaulted it a few weeks ago. The dense layout, the
narrow streets, and Islamic State defenses have all complicated the fighting. The
stalemate is leading the ISF to re-evaluate its strategy. They did this before
when things slowed in east Mosul and successfully came up with a new game plan
to regain the initiative. What appears to be happening is that the police
forces are continuing their push into the Old City, while the Golden Division are
moving north on the other side of the city bypassing the district perhaps to
attack it from the flank or surround it.

To the west of Mosul, the 9th Division and Hashd
took a cement
factory and dam
in the Badush district. These forces were originally supposed to attack Mosul
from the west and open a third front, but they have been in Badush for weeks
now. If they make a drive on the city, they could help change the dynamic.

East Mosul is liberated but the insurgents are constantly
shelling it. On March
26 they hit
a market in Nabi
Younis, and there might have been a suicide bomber involved as well, but
that was only in one source. The end result was 16 dead and 43 wounded. Since
all the focus is on the battle for west Mosul little is said about these mortar
attacks on the east unless there are a lot of casualties like happened in Nabi
Younis.

The United States is sending a new army unit to assist the
Iraqi forces in Mosul. The 2nd Brigade Combat Team of the 82nd
Airborne will be deploying
to Ninewa soon. Officially there are around 5,200 American troops in Iraq right
now, but the real figure is closer to 6,000. Under President Trump these units
are now able to forward deploy, and be more active in their assistance to the
ISF. They are also training the Iraqi army and police, providing artillery
support, and largely running the supply system for the Iraqis.

The Agency for Technical Cooperation and Development went
to seven neighborhoods in west Mosul during the start of March to report on the
conditions there. They were all in the same situation with food shortages,
markets and shops being open, but many lacked a lot of goods, and few people
could buy anything because they had little cash and there were few jobs
available. The water and electricity networks are also down. Most of the areas,
but not all were getting some sort of aid from non-government organizations,
the United Nations, and the Kuwaiti or Iraqi governments. It has been little
reported, but Kuwait has been providing assistance to Ninewa since the start of
the campaign in October 2016. The problem is that none of these groups are
providing enough to meet demand. Much has been made of business trying to
re-start in east Mosul, but with no real working economy or services there can
only be limited progress. The government needs to get the water, electricity,
and sanitation systems up, get government workers back in, pay the ones that
are already there, and start rebuilding. Until that happens, nothing much will
really change. This is a big problem because there is a growing resentment
amongst the population that Baghdad is not doing enough.

A little followed story is that there has been looting going
on in Mosul. The Interior Ministry said
it arrested a group of four men in the Quds neighborhood wearing military
uniforms that were robbing people. This followed a report yesterday that gangs
were going through abandoned buildings in both sections of the city stealing.
There have also been reports that real members of the ISF and local officials
were seizing goods as well.

Finally, the United Nations found
that the displacement crisis was on going. Officially there are 273,720
displaced (IDPs) in Ninewa. The real figure is probably higher. From March
23-24 26,881 people arrived at the main screening center in Hamam al-Alil where
the ISF send people fleeing west Mosul. Most said they were leaving because of
the fighting, specifically air strikes. Many were entering the town injured.
People who are cleared are being sent to camps south and east of Mosul. The
problem is these camps are overflowing. There are two camps that have room, but
civilians arriving there told the U.N. that the authorities were not providing
information or much transportation to them. There are now hundreds of people
squatting and camping around Hamam al-Alil. They are waiting for the U.N. to
open a new camp there. They don’t want to go to the other areas because they
want to stay as close to west Mosul as possible so they can return to their
homes when it is safe. The number of people flowing out of the city is
overwhelming the government, aid agencies and the facilities they have prepared
for them. Baghdad told people to stay inside of Mosul because it knew neither
it nor the U.N. could take care of them. The intensity of the battle however,
and thousands of people being dragged into the city from surrounding towns to
be used as human shields has led to a large exodus. To add to the IDPs
hardships there has been bad weather for the last few weeks meaning people have
to slog through mud and those not in camps are living in the rain. With only
about 40-50% of west Mosul liberated many more civilians are going to come out
meaning things are going to get a lot worse before they get better.

Iraq History Timeline

About Me

Musings On Iraq was started in 2008 to explain the political, economic, security and cultural situation in Iraq via original articles and interviews. I have written for the Jamestown Foundation, Tom Ricks’ Best Defense at Foreign Policy and the Daily Beast, and was responsible for a chapter in the book Volatile Landscape: Iraq And Its Insurgent Movements. My work has been published in Iraq via NRT, AK News, Al-Mada, Sotaliraq, All Iraq News, and Ur News all in Iraq. I was interviewed on BBC Radio 5, Radio Sputnik, CCTV and TRT World News TV, and have appeared in CNN, the Christian Science Monitor, The National, Columbia Journalism Review, Mother Jones, PBS’ Frontline, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Institute for the Study of War, Radio Free Iraq, Rudaw, and others. I have also been cited in Iraq From war To A New Authoritarianism by Toby Dodge, Imagining the Nation Nationalism, Sectarianism and Socio-Political Conflict in Iraq by Harith al-Qarawee, ISIS Inside the Army of Terror by Michael Weiss and Hassan Hassahn, The Rise of the Islamic State by Patrick Cocburn, and others. If you wish to contact me personally my email is: motown67@aol.com